


Patience Is Not Only For The Virtuous

by Davechicken



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-10
Updated: 2020-04-10
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:48:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23579428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Davechicken/pseuds/Davechicken
Summary: ...but also for a demon who isn't very good at accepting what's right in front of him.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 180
Collections: Top Aziraphale Recs





	Patience Is Not Only For The Virtuous

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WhiteleyFoster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhiteleyFoster/gifts).



It all started smoothly enough, for them. One day shortly after the last day (which wasn’t), Aziraphale calmly informed him (right before taking a sip of distractionary cocoa over which he could make the big eyes and hide the expression on his lips) that he would be amenable if Crowley were to recommence courting him.

Recommence. Crowley wasn’t aware that he had stopped. Or started. Or - or - anything. He’d opened his mouth to reply, got stuck somewhere between the lack of thought and inability to put that into soundwaves, and then bit hard on his lip. 

“What do you say, my dear?”

Crowley couldn’t remember what he’d said. 

He knew, though, from long experience, that the best thing to do in these situations was take the credit for any good idea that had been mistakenly attributed to you. After all, it was a shame to waste good credit, and people frequently didn’t give it to him for things he _had_ done, so it was just - you know - delayed gratitude. Or something.

In his head, the answer had been sure, and suave, and calm, and collected. Nonchalant, maybe. Utterly devastatingly impressive.

But he knew that it was almost certainly his memory protecting his ego, and filed it away with a lot of other Incidents it was better to view in rose-tinted retrospect.

***

Crowley had seen courtship, from the outside. He’d seen all sorts of it. Back when you just went to the next village and went ‘that one’ and tried to take them home, to elaborate marzipan expressions of longing, to coded clothing, to bosom-wobbling novels and soppy, stupid rom-coms which he only watched when he wanted to mock humanity, and not because he got some weird thrill from crying about dogs and missed opportunities. 

So what on earth (or off it) was Aziraphale expecting? 

None of the real rules applied. Neither of them had families per se, or, well. It was complicated. But as both of them had been disowned in effect, he didn’t have to beg permission or win his right. (Which was useful, because Gabriel had tried to execute _Aziraphale_ , and he could only imagine what it would have been like if he’d known it was Crowley in front of him. So. They weren’t invited to any parties.)

There were no issues of wealth and dowry, because wealth was (hah) immaterial. No lines of succession. No real competition, either, so he didn’t have to beat anyone in tournaments or out-do another suitor.

It was absolutely alien to the old prim and proper world he knew Aziraphale clung to in his sentiment. Crowley could try lying down a cape over a puddle, and bringing him favours and tokens, but the rest of that was totally out.

Modern courtship, from what he could tell, seemed to forego the ‘let us strengthen our houses, make children, secure political support, and enhance our standing’ in favour of ‘I find this one physically appealing and/or I can talk to them about things that interest me’. 

Some seemed to be entirely about the first, which - fair play to them if that’s what they wanted - but he couldn’t help but feel there was no real need to get married if you just wanted to bump against one another and didn’t want to have brats nine months later.

(It had taken him much longer than he liked to admit, to work out how one and one became three. In his defence, it was gross, and babies weren’t useful to demons, except as an agent of insomnia or the offspring of Satan himself. Which Crowley sometimes thought newborns all were.)

So did he just - take the bits he thought would work? Did he ask? (No, you absolutely did not ask.) Did he just… try to wing it, and adjust on the fly?

And he did want this, didn’t he?

Crowley fought the rising waves of anxiety, squirting aggressively targeted water at increasingly neurotic plants. Aziraphale was his best friend. His only friend. His only associate, companion, and - and - everything. Losing the world had been bad enough to face, but losing the angel…

The idea of it - the concept of it - had been so overwhelmingly awful that he’d re-assessed every priority he’d ever known and come up with a list. Tied for first place were: ‘Survive’ and ‘Keep the angel’. Which meant that ‘Keep the angel’ won, as to keep him, he had to survive, and so it was encapsulated in the condition, and therefore it was the only real priority.

And yeah, okay, so he had kind of gotten comfortable with dinners and parks and stuff. And he’d always been a little - er - was insecure the right word? Unsure? Always on edge that another fight would have them not talking for hundreds of years? Desperate for some kind of reassurance and - ick - _understanding_...

It wasn’t the done thing. For demons. Demons should be self-sufficient and self-serving. And want to do just evil shit all the time. And not care about if people liked them or not, except as a way of getting things they wanted.

It just so happened that what he wanted - or some of it - was… for Aziraphale to like him. And spend time with him. And - who knew - maybe it would be nice if they had… recognition. From other people. Or each other. 

It wasn’t as if he had distant, half-formed fantasies about holding hands on the way back to the car. Or silly things like being able to give flowers without worrying about if it made him look like a pathetic… thing. Or maybe???

Maybe???

Kissing????????

Kissing. 

Yeah.

So, he’d try.

***

Dating was, it turned out, okay. He refused to mentally use the word ‘court’ as whilst he was old, he was not - you know - old old. Aziraphale could talk all prim and proper, but Crowley believed in adapting and whatnots. 

He did not blush when they held hands. At all. (Maybe a little.)

He did not nearly give himself lip piercings when he felt an ankle brush his under a table.

He did not feel light-headed when a certain angel solicited kisses, and then proceeded to either devour his tongue, or do things he’d once done to oysters (wait, had he been giving a show of his lip-locking embrace in _Rome_?). 

Crowley was not a love-sick puppy at all. No. He was entirely cool, calm, and collected. He held his angel’s hand when they walked under streetlights and people could see, because he was self-assured and very proud to let everyone know they were A Thing, and not secretly worrying it was a joke or anyone would try to take him away. 

He was totally cool with draping his arm over the back of the bench, or over his shoulders. Even in the cinema. And on the couch. He had no butterfly equivalent of line-dancing going on when Aziraphale leaned onto his shoulder as they watched things. And he was perfectly fine with the hand on his - his - THIGH.

YEP.

Crowley was cool, because Crowley Was Cool. And he totally knew what the right amount of kissing was in public. And he was absolutely fine with it happening.

And not at all worried by how - how - calm Aziraphale was with all of this. Sure, he would bounce giddily like he was sitting on a hedgehog, but enjoying it. He would fluster and blush and exclaim and preen, but it was - it wasn’t nerves! It was gleeful! And - and - absurdly enchanting. It was like seeing him uncover new restaurants or meals or books every single time, and Crowley was terrified that the spell would break, or the novelty would wear off. 

Why was he so damn smooth about it? How was it possible to giggle when touched, and be coy, and still - STILL - be the most secure and sure of them?

Crowley was not afraid. Or anxious. Or anything.

He was totally cool with it.

Yeah.

***

It was their - two month? Two month anniversary? Maybe? (Yes.) Since he was told it was okay to continue with the thing he didn’t know he’d started.

And Crowley bought him a box of cream cakes, and also flowers, and also champagne. He stopped short of some fluffy teddy bear, though he’d eyed them around his glasses for some time. 

Aziraphale was fluffy enough on his own. And he’d never shown (to date) an interest in fake animals. And he was cool, and they were Adults, and they weren’t - er - you know. Kids. Or.

But the champagne was definitely for adults. And it went down past a throat that tightened in some kind of sympathy for something he didn’t understand. It shouldn’t have gone so fast to his head, but the way the angel’s eyes gleamed like they were holes punched through the clouds to see the sky beam through… the rich, throaty rumble in his voice… the full pout of his lips and the lashes on his cheeks…

Crowley was light-headed and jittery, dancing on eggshells and juggling plates. The angel was so, so happy. And so, so… well. Affectionate. He leaned closer, floral, grape-breath tickling his face. Thumb on the inside of his knee, pushing against his patella. Closer. Closer.

The kissing he understood. Enjoyed. The hands mutually exploring hair, jaw, throat. Aziraphale was emboldened, and Crowley was going to keep up, damnit! Even as there was a surge of soft angel who looked like marshmallow but felt more like multiple sheep when he sat on his lap.

Chest to chest. Fingers plucking at his clothing, like wrappers over candy, or paper over gifts. An unusually deeper purr in the angel’s breathing, and then hands that didn’t ask permission, but just - WHOA - under and around and wasn’t there normally more kissing first? Not that it was bad, and - he just expected that the angel would - that he’d be as nerv-- er, circumspect as Crowley…

“Angel?”

“It’s alright. I know what I’m doing. I want this.”

Crowley watched as the angel dropped from his lap with all the grace he shouldn’t be able to muster, and grabbed his knees and shoved them apart.

Crowley snapped them back together, nearly decapitating the Principality who was about to surge between them.

“I said it’s alright,” Aziraphale soothed him, running his palms over his upper thighs. “I want this. You - you aren’t going too fast.”

The angel had a warm palm over the front of Crowley’s crotch, pushing in, his fingers doing entirely new magic tricks which were not suitable for anyone whatsoever, but which were certainly more impressive than concealing and uncovering of coins. It sent intense shockwaves of sensation up his spine, and had his hands screeching into the armrest, and - breathe - breathe - cool, calm, suave, sophisticated--

“I’M A BLOODY SODDING VIRGIN, ALRIGHT? Happy now! You’re all - oh, look at me, so innocent and angelic and sweet and secretly you’re some kind of SEX FIEND who has NO PROBLEMS with trying to get in my pants and I’m - supposed to be the cool one and tempt people and HOW IN THE HELL CAN I BE ANY GOOD AT THIS WHEN ALL I DO WHEN I LOOK AT YOU IS FEEL LIKE MY TONGUE IS IN FIFTEEN KNOTS AT ONCE AND YOU WILL BE DISAPPOINTED BECAUSE YOU LIKE THE BEST THINGS AND--”

Crowley was trying to work out how to vanish into thin air when he couldn’t work out which part of him was up (all of him) and maybe see if he could wipe the last - howeverlong - from Aziraphale’s mind and--

“--WHY ARE YOU LOOKING LIKE THAT?”

“My dear!” Aziraphale had sat back upon his haunches, and allowed the long legs to tie themselves back safely together between them. “I am so, so sorry! I thought - I thought you had done this!”

“WHY?”

“Because - because you were always wanting to try their new inventions, even before me!”

“New? New? They were at it in Eden before they even knew what apples were! New?” Okay, so he sounded hysterical, and he grumpily pulled what shreds of dignity he had around him. “No. Alright? I never wanted to.”

“Oh.” His face was utterly fallen.

“I meant - I meant with anyone… else.”

Aziraphale wisely (but annoyingly) did not speak.

Crowley, damn the world, was thus forced to continue. “I didn’t want to with anyone else, it was all - you know - it didn’t. And. Maybe I thought about it with you, but--”

“And for your first time, I attempted to ‘jump your bones’ and didn’t take your desires into consideration! Oh, Crowley! You must forgive me! Had I known this was your first time-- oh! Oh, I am such a fool.” 

Aziraphale’s head then rested on Crowley’s knee, not pushing further, but one hand caressing a calf all the same. 

Crowley was beyond mortified. Why hadn’t he just - er - let him… he was intending to - suck him off, right? That was what this position implied? Crowley wasn’t even sure his parts properly worked, or what it would entail, and here was an angel ready to get every kind of on with him. 

“Your first time should be so, so special. It should be an act of love, more than lust.”

Snottily, he couldn’t help himself. “Was yours?”

“Yes,” Aziraphale answered, with total sincerity and not a shred of embarrassment. “With a very good friend. But not as good a friend as you.”

How many, he wanted to ask. How many ‘good friends’ have you done this to. And am I just another one? What if this changes everything? What if we hate it, or I hate it? What if--

“I would very much prefer it to be with you, though I can’t say I regret past intimacy. Are you… are you cross with me?”

“Well. Seeing as you thought I was apparently bonking my way around the world, I guess you weren’t being hypocritical.” Even after he said it, he winced. 

“If I had known…”

“Yeah, well.” He tried to squirm away, to indicate this might want to stop, now. 

“Could we perhaps… go back to kissing?” Aziraphale asked. “If you still want to. And… we leave anything further for if you do want to do it?”

Special. Love. Weird, dumb words for what was basically just rubbing in weird ways. Crowley looked at the champagne, then at the angel, and tried very hard to breathe. 

“Perhaps a walk, instead?” 

Aziraphale sounded so desperate as he asked, so heartbroken and earnest. Crowley nodded. Yeah. A walk. 

***

During the walk, Aziraphale locked their arms together, but mercifully didn’t mention the previous interaction. Instead, he was extra-light and extra-cheery. It felt a little strained, but he was certainly making an effort, and Crowley almost appreciated it.

When they got back to the bookshop, they lingered by the doorway. Crowley wasn’t sure he could face going back in just yet, but he didn’t want to say goodbye, either. 

“I am sorry,” Aziraphale whispered. “Truly. And I do not in any way want you to think I treasure your company any more, or any less, whether we… become intimate or not.”

“I kicked you in the head.”

“Only a little. And it didn’t hurt.”

I’m an idiot. A fool. A moron. An utter sponge, with even less brain cells. The roll of self-loathing gathered momentum and size, until he was startled by a tiny little kiss to his cheek. 

“Huh?”

“We - we needn’t continue down that line, unless you would like to. And if we do, I promise I won’t take anything for granted, next time.”

“...r-right.” Aren’t you ashamed and embarrassed by my inexperienced ass?

“If anything,” came the whisper that was too close to having heard his internal monologue than was comfortable, “...I find it incredibly sensual and romantic that you refrained for me. It’s _exciting_.”

Exciting. Dating a six thousand year old virgin.

Hmmm.

Another kiss, to the cheek, and Aziraphale opened the door. Crowley considered following him, but instead he politely (for him) said goodnight and ran off home.

***

Aside from the mortifying moment where he’d freaked out and admitted he was as pure (sexually speaking) as driven (and driving would surely make it dirtier) snow, it hadn’t been that bad. 

Like. Looking back, Crowley could remember the sensations had been pleasant. The kissing and the touching and the closeness. And he’d absolutely been - er - with the program. And Aziraphale’s soft face and incredibly loving features and--

Why hadn’t he just lain back, let it happen, pretended of course he’d fucked his way through every version of the 60s, and then found out how to get the angel off and it would all have been great and he’d never have known that he’d panicked himself almost out of his body.

He drove too fast. Deliberately so, even for him. Turned corners too sharply, just to - to - fill up all the bits of his mind, like pouring water into the cracks to try to keep any other thoughts from reaching the surface. Clutch. Shift. Feeling the gears, the hum of the engine as she pistoned through her songs. Up. Accelerate. Foot off, using the existing momentum to ease around. 

He’d learned this. Why couldn’t he learn that? It was just bodily contact, just like handshakes, and - and advanced disco dancing. It was - it - 

It wasn’t. Or he would have wiggled his bits with another demon, or a human. But he hadn’t wanted to. It wasn’t interesting, if it wasn’t Aziraphale, and apparently it wasn’t just bit-wiggling. And - oh _Satan’s_ sake - he did want to bloody well make love, didn’t he?

Crowley slammed a hand into the steering wheel, narrowly avoided running over a small dog walked by a not-small human, and did the sharpest handbrake turn he could remember.

The Bentley - with a metallic whine of protest - went up onto two wheels and pirouetted like the dancer she was - and hared back towards the bookshop.

***

The angel was not expecting him at the door, judging by the grumpy expression he usually reserved for people who unwittingly interrupted him when he was engrossed in something enjoyable. For instance, customers wanting to engage in custom.

But the creased brow lifted into sunny joy, then wandered over into mild concern.

“Crowley? Is everything--”

Crowley did not know what to say, so he decided it was better he didn’t. He launched himself at the angel, hands on his face, tongue awkwardly fucking past his lips in a very crude approximation of what he would rather like to convey he was ready for, thank you. 

They took some staggering steps around - the most awkward dance ever - kisses and grabbing and chuckled gasps of breath - until they were inside enough for Crowley to kick the front door shut behind them.

“That thing you said? Yeah. Okay. You convinced me,” the demon mumbled. “If you still wa----HEY!”

“Bedroom,” Aziraphale said, eyes flashing. “I do. But it’s much softer with a bed.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

***

On the bed, with no shoes, and only trousers and shirts, they stopped undressing and resumed just kissing. Crowley was pretty sure you didn’t need to kiss this much, but it meant he had those fingers tousling his hair, and he could feel the tiny chortles and whuffs of delight over his lips, so he wasn’t complaining.

‘Make love’, he’d said. Like it was… different. 

It was the same thing, wasn’t it? How did you know when it was love, and when it was - uh - lechery? Licentiousness? You couldn’t really define drinking tea sensually, as opposed to sarcastically, but you… knew. You just knew. 

And he knew. But he also thought that the first time around had been that, too. More because of the - uh - being involved. This was more deliberate, more… considered. More…

His heart still pounded when he was urged onto his back, and for a moment the reptilian hind-brain equivalent remembered vulnerability, remembered fear. But then there were hands coasting over the surface, and there was no pain, and just infinite, tender compassion. Smiles, and no rushing. He let his fingers touch upper arms, chasing the movements, making sure he knew it was alright. 

Kind words, soothing ones. Like you would to a skittish animal, or a hurt child. Or - apparently - a beloved. He wasn’t used to such open kindness, and it made him squirm away, but a hand on his jaw made their eyes meet.

“Crowley.”

“Mmmmh?”

“Let me. Please.”

Let him what? Do the - sex thing? Or--

“Let me _love_ you,” Aziraphale pushed, and then started to nibble and kiss his way over his throat. “Let me show you how much you mean to me.” Lower, and buttons fell out of holes to allow the fell worship to continue. “Let me show you how **perfect** you are, to me. For me. With me.”

Crowley wanted to kick him off, protest, make light, make - make space. He was not good, in any way. Not perfect. He was utterly ridiculous, and he knew it, and Aziraphale knew it, and everyone knew it!

He was not supposed to be lying on an angel’s bed, being smothered in kisses and kindness. He did not deserve it. He was unforgivable. And he was… he was… looking up into the most knowing eyes. Ones that had said so many things, over the years. Seen so many things. Seen his best, his worst, and--

“Angel!”

“I do love you. So very, very much. In every way you’ll allow.”

No! No! Crowley was not strong enough, and if it got taken from him… Heaven had been taken from him, and that was supposed to be unconditional, but had more conditions than a hypochondriac on WebMD. 

“C-can’t. Can’t - can’t you just - can’t you just fuck me?” he begged, spreading his legs, wondering why this had to be torture. Why he had to rip right into him, and turn him inside out. 

Why it couldn’t just be blowjobs and orgasms and damp spots and handjobs and buggering over, under, and in various bits of furniture? Why couldn’t it be humping, grinding, frotting and - and - all sorts of words he realised he knew, but didn’t understand?

Why the **fuck** was he being tortured with _love_? Surely he shouldn’t even be able to feel it, but then Aziraphale had always been… special, and Crowley had always been smitten. 

“I will,” the angel said, vanishing clothes and putting hands under his waist, pulling it up from the bed to kiss his belly and hips. “I will. I will give you all the love I have.”

No, no… it hurt. It hurt his chest, and the eyes and the smile and the patience and the affection and the laughs and the way he fucking well wanted to be here, with him, forever and ever. Here, or benches, or nice restaurants, or ships or boats or banquets or tents or mountains or - just - Aziraphale. Aziraphale’s smile, and his brightness, and his joy, and his cleverness, and his - his - just - that spark of something that wasn’t clinical and dead but so very, very **alive**. That curiosity, that - THING that he had never been able to resist…

He was pathetic, and writhing, and whimpering, and this was just kisses and stroking and touching, and he was nearly crying from it. Hands in soft hair, and his legs moving to demand? Request? Both?

The touches sort of blurred, feverish melting of one sensation into another. He pushed his face into hair, and knew he was flayed open from one edge of the universe to the other. Aziraphale could do anything to him, and he’d accept it. Could tell him he was unworthy, wicked, and derided. Could command him to fly apart, atom by atom. Could destroy him with one sharp look.

But instead, it was love. Love and acceptance, spreading into all those gaps, taking every inch of his mind and sense of the world. He felt the way his body accepted the stretch, the way his hips bounced and fever built in his belly and his toes. Felt the sting that didn’t hurt, of knowing he’d been opened and entered. It wasn’t fucking. It wasn’t even making love. It was something entirely other, as he took each thrust and arched and rode and called out. 

Crowley hadn’t the presence of mind to try to give back. If he thought about it enough, he’d be ashamed of how selfish he was, how he was simply letting Aziraphale do all the work. But the words, the wash of adoration and praise as he was taken slowly into the sheets…

It didn’t even stop when he felt the gush of release. One, both, he didn’t know. Warm and wet and a little of the fever-heat gone. A spreading relief through his limbs as his body crested the sensations. Release, release that flowed out like crying in grief, and happiness, and everything all in one. 

Crowley clung on desperately, sticky and sated and still so very, very raw. He couldn’t let the angel go, couldn’t let him leave. The smell of him, and the beat of his heart under his ribs. It. It was. It was good, so good, so…

“Mnh,” Crowley said, nose under his angel’s ear. “S’good.”

“Incredibly so,” Aziraphale chuckled, his own voice so broken that it was - well - it made things inside tighten all over. “Thank you,” he murmured.

“What for?”

“Being you,” the angel replied, and squeezed him all the harder. “You beautiful, beautiful fool.”

“Mmmmnh.” He was not beautiful, but he was definitely a fool. “Not moving.”

“No, not for some time.”

Good. Crowley nuzzled some more. He was very glad he’d waited, after all.


End file.
